It isn't possible to calculate summer design cooling loads for each
hour by simply summing internal gains for that hour because it is
necessary to take into account the building thermal mass, as well as
the difference between convective and radiant heat t...
_Q: "UNMET HOURS REPORTED AT BUILDING LEVEL, WHAT IS BEST PROCESS TO
DIAGNOSE AT ZONE/SPACE LEVEL?"_
The Zone-by-zone summary table can by found at "Summary" summary
tables.
Both .csv and .hml outputs (see shown on the attached screenshot)
include "Time...
"ABNORMAL ENERGYPLUS TERMINATION- PLEASE CONTACT DESIGNBUILDER
SUPPORT"
If you are receiving this message while running a simulation then the
issue may be with a file on your installation.
To fix this pease delete all files inside the EnergyPlus folde...
If your simulation generates the following Severe/Fatal error:
Program Version,EnergyPlus, Version 9.4.0-998c4b761e, YMD=2021.03.18
12:07,
** Severe ** [Material:NoMass][3_RVAL_4][thermal_resistance] -
"0.000100" - Expected number greater than or ...
When writing out zone floor area and volume settings to the EnergyPlus
input data, DesignBuilder uses the geometry convention settings
described in the Geometry convention template
[https://designbuilder.co.uk/helpv6.0/Content/GeometryAreasAndVolumes.htm#...
The usual reason for these errors is that the partitions between
"included" and "excluded" zones are modelled using adiabatic boundary
condition, but some of these surfaces in the model have openings in
them. EnergyPlus doesn't allow this.
Zones are exc...
EnergyPlus doesn't calculate the global U-value of glazing + frame but
you can use the "Simple" glazing definition method and enter combined
glazing + frame U-value, SHGC and VT values. In this case it is
important to avoid including the frame twice, so m...
When using calculated natural ventilation with very large airflow
openings (relative to the size of the rest of the zone) an EnergyPlus
error can occur:
"Too many iterations (SOLVZP) in Airflow Network simulation"
This is caused by EnergyPlus failing ...
In simulations, the surface fabric and solar heat transfer output is controlled by the Surface heat transfer incl solar output option. In versions 2.2 and later of DesignBuilder this output is now switched off by default to reduce the size of the output...
The simple glazing model works by taking a very basic description of
the glazing system, then the surface (film) coefficients are stripped
off and a match is made with some standard glazing system types, the
parameters of these are adjusted through interp...
This is a known issue with energy modelling programs where the ASHRAE
90.1 standard sets U-values that are based on metal frames with
"finning" which mean that the effective heat exchange area for the
window assembly is actually higher than the area of th...
At the end of an EnergyPlus simulation DesignBuilder reads the
EnergyPlus output file eplusout.eso. Much of the data is stored and
displayed without further processing but in some cases the outputs are
processed to ensure that they are consistent with the...
This
warning will occur for partitions between 2 merged zones. Because of
the merging, the zone is the same on both sides of the partition and
EnergyPlus flags this as a potential mistake. To avoid this message,
you can select the 'Surfaces within zone ...
Identifying surfacesThe first step is to search for the surface reference in the IDF data. For example if the error is related to surface 'W_21_4_0', search for this text. You should then find a definition for the surface, something like: ! Block 1, Z...
This advice refers to EnergyPlus v5 and earlier (DesignBuilder v.2.2 and earlier) - it should not be relevant to EnergyPlus v6 (DesignBuilder v2.3) and later which have fully extensible data. In some cases DOE versions of EnergyPlus cannot simulate the...
You can use DesignBuilder to generate EnergyPlus idf files for use in external simulation environments such as EP-Launch. There are 4 alternative procedures for doing this:1. From the File > Export menu option (recommended) 2. By copying the intermed...
